News and reviews from across the worldwide Triratna Buddhist Community (formerly known as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) and Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG) in India)

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Back in June FWBO News reported that Vessantara was embarking on a three-year retreat in the mountains of France. He has now gone, but we have recently been alerted to a ‘terma’ left by him, and wanted to share this with readers who may be interested.

Specifically, his book ‘The Five Female Buddhas’is available in full on his website. This is a detailed commentary on five pujas, one to each of the Five Female Buddhas. These are mentioned as part of the extended family of figures in the well-known Five Buddha Mandala and appear in many other places in Tibetan Buddhism, for instance in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The five pujas were also written by Vessantara and are also available on his website here. Of the project as a whole, he says -

“Writing the sadhanas and the pujas was a strange process. There were times when rationally I felt very presumptuous – who was I to be doing such things? Yet at another level it felt very right – as if the figures just needed a channel to communicate themselves, and I happened to be that channel.

“And I decided early on in the process that I needn’t worry about the outcome. If there was no spiritual power in the figures then, perhaps after some initial interest, they would die away. But if they spoke to people’s spiritual needs, and helped them to engage with the spiritual adventure, then they would find a way to do so despite any imperfections that I might have introduced”.

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Triratna Buddhist Community

The Triratna Buddhist Community - formerly known as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) - was founded in 1967 by Sangharakshita. It is now an international movement with activities in more than 20 countries, including India. The Triratna Buddhist Community is a non-sectarian Buddhist movement which seeks promote the practice of Buddhism in a form appropriate to the modern world.

Triratna means "Three Jewels", specifically the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which are the central foci of a Buddhist's life and practice. They've long been represented in our logo and we're delighted that our name will now reflect them as well.